Two N.H.L. Star Defensemen, and Fans, Adjust to a Big Trade

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The Canadiens’ Shea Weber, top center, waved to fans at a video tribute during a game against the Predators in Nashville this month. Weber was the captain of the Predators before being traded last off-season.CreditMark Humphrey/Associated Press

By Andrew Knoll

Jan. 30, 2017

Last summer, two defensemen from opposing conferences with distinct styles of play and contrasting personalities were forever placed in the same breath, their destinies intertwined by a trade.

The Nashville Predators sent Shea Weber, their cornerstone, to the Montreal Canadiens for P. K. Subban, who had become tremendously popular in Montreal and throughout the league. Subban, 27, won a Norris Trophy as the league’s top defenseman in 2013. Weber, 31, had been a three-time finalist for the award.

“Sometimes you forget that superstars get traded,” Anaheim Ducks defenseman Cam Fowler said. “Obviously, what P. K. meant to Montreal and the impact that he had on that city, it was hard for them to let him go. The same with Shea, who was their captain for years.”

Weber and Subban were together again at last weekend’s All-Star three-on-three tournament. Weber’s 31 points in 50 games for the first-place Canadiens, and his plus-18 rating, made him an obvious selection. Subban was voted in as a team captain by the fans despite a mixed first half of the season. He posted only 18 points and missed 16 games for the Predators, who are in third place in the Central Division.

“I don’t know if they were voting for best performance,” Subban said of the fans. “I think it probably came down to best-looking captain, which would have been me for sure.”

Seldom had a major trade come together so quickly and so unexpectedly. The deal was first discussed just days earlier, after Canadiens General Manager Marc Bergevin insisted he was not shopping Subban.

Subban had signed an eight-year, $72 million extension before the 2014-15 season. Weber had one of the largest and most controversial contracts in N.H.L. history. When he was a restricted free agent, the Philadelphia Flyers made him an offer designed to be too burdensome for the smaller-market Predators to match. But they did, and that front-loaded contract was worth $110 million over 14 years, with nearly $70 million in signing bonuses.

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P.K. Subban, front, in action for the Predators last week. Subban, a popular figure in Montreal, was acquired from the Canadiens in the off-season for Weber.CreditMark Humphrey/Associated Press

Effervescent and extroverted, Subban had become a top scorer not only among the Canadiens but defensemen across the N.H.L., had learned French and had donated $10 million to Montreal Children’s Hospital.

Weber, steely and businesslike, was beloved in Nashville. He is regarded as the most menacing defenseman in the league because of his nasty physical play and unparalleled slap shot. On All-Star weekend, Weber won his third straight hardest-shot competition.

“He’s physical and he’s mean,” Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman said. “He’s one of the top defensemen in the whole league. What separates him is his massive shot. You try to block it, but sometimes you pray to God that the puck doesn’t hit you.”

Many fans in Montreal were crestfallen after the trade, including one who purchased a full-page ad in The Montreal Gazette criticizing the deal and comparing it to the trade of Patrick Roy. The fervor around the trade grew so great that someone registered a web domain, pksubbantracker.com, to stage an ongoing vote of which team had won the trade.

“Not very many players get to leave a city like Montreal and have fans support them the way that the fans support me,” Subban said.

But despite the initial disbelief from Montreal fans, 85 percent of votes on pksubbantracker.com are in favor of Weber and the Canadiens.

Weber had 12 points as Montreal went 13-1-1 in its first 15 games, and he had 10 points in 13 games in January after an unproductive December. With 18 power-play points in 50 games, he appears set to cruise past his career high, 26.

Montreal Coach Michel Therrien said Weber had also been excellent at even strength, in addition to providing the tough-to-quantify qualities the Canadiens sought.

“When you’re talking about leaders, he’s probably one of the best in the league,” Therrien said. “He’s all business. He makes people around him better and more focused. We’re a young group, and we need a guy like that in the dressing room.”

Therrien added, “He’s helped me to be a better coach, and that’s what you’re looking for from your leaders.”

The Predators, who made the playoffs the past two seasons, had a turbulent start to this season, marred by injuries, illnesses and inconsistency. Even Subban, who had played 274 consecutive games to start his career, missed five weeks, the longest stretch of his career. But Nashville has captured 20 out of a possible 28 points in the past month, climbing into the playoff picture.

Weber declined to make any comparisons between two very different cities or between the highly structured system of Therrien and the freewheeling Nashville coach, Peter Laviolette. Subban said he had been captivated by the energy in Nashville and impressed with Laviolette’s ability to forge through less-than-ideal circumstances.

“It’s a fun place to be, and I’m really happy to be there,” Subban said.

But he is still connected to both cities. Around Christmas time, Subban asked children he worked with in Montreal write letters to children in Nashville with sickle cell disease, whom he surprised with a sleigh ride and a shopping spree at the Predators store.

In Montreal, Weber gets his time in the spotlight with one of the league’s most hallowed teams. The CBC analyst Don Cherry once said of Weber, “The only reason he didn’t win the Norris was because he was in Nashville and nobody knew he was alive.”

The debate over who won the trade may run well past the end of Subban’s and Weber’s careers. But with two such talented players, it would be hard to describe either side as a loser.

“In the hockey world, you trade for what you want, and both teams got what they want,” Nashville General Manager David Poile said this month, the first time the teams had met since the trade. “And you guys get something to talk about for the next 10 years.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B10 of the New York edition with the headline: Two Star Defensemen, and Fans, Adjust to a Big Trade. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe